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This volume examines the history of natural disasters in the United States and the nation's ongoing struggles with long-term disaster preparedness and response. It explores the political, economic, and cultural factors that have shaped the country's vulnerability. It highlights why, despite its vast resources, the United States has remained one of the most resistant actors in recognizing and mitigating disaster risk.
Bringing together contributions from a variety of fields, this book analyzes the role of political institutions, media narratives, and cultural perceptions in shaping disaster policy. It examines key historical events to identify patterns of governance failure and missed opportunities to build resilience. Ultimately, this volume provides crucial insights into the historical baggage that the United States brings to multilateral climate negotiations, helping to explain its often frustrating role on the international stage.
This book is essential reading for students, researchers, and scholars in the social sciences, humanities, and environmental studies, as well as policymakers and practitioners seeking a deeper understanding of the challenges and shortcomings of U.S. disaster mitigation policy.
Chapter Becoming Green: Resilient and Green Building as Risk Mitigation in Atlanta, Georgia is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
List of contents
Chapter 1. Introduction.- Part I: Governance.- Chapter 2. Disaster Made Manifest: The Federal Role in U.S. Natural Disasters.- Chapter 3. Nature by Numbers: The National Flood Insurance Program.- Chapter 4. All of the Above: Energy, Environmental Politics, and U.S. Climate Change Policy since the 1970s Oil Crises.- Chapter 5. Letting Nature Do its Thing: Early Flood Control and Environmental Disaster along the Los Angeles River.- Part II: Representation and Perception.- Chapter 6. Hopeless Optimism: Framing Early 20th Century Earthquakes as News and History in the Making.- Chapter 7. Hurricanes and Theodicy in 20th and 21st Century American Protestantism.- Chapter 8. Through the Eyes of the White, Innocent Child: Whiteness, Vulnerability, and (Environmental) Crisis in Lauren Tarshi s I Survived Series.- Chapter 9. Reporting Catastrophes: Mainstream Media and Vulnerability to Disasters in the U.S..- Part III: Impact and Response.- Chapter 10. Multinational Insurers and Catastrophic Loss: Responses to the San Francisco Disaster of 1906.- Chapter 11. Oil Ports and Hurricanes along the Texas Gulf Coast.- Chapter 12. Becoming Green: Resilient and Green Building as Risk Mitigation in Atlanta, Georgia.
About the author
Natalie Rauscher worked as a post-doctoral researcher in the field of political science at Heidelberg University, Heidelberg Center for American Studies (Germany). Her research includes discourses on the future of work, American philanthropy, the impact of natural disasters in the United States and the global issue of the polycrisis. Natalie Rauscher has been a guest scholar at Kellogg Institute for International Studies, Notre Dame (USA) and is a member of the WIN-Kolleg of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Her work has been published with Springer International Publishing, and in journals like Journal for Political Science, Policy Advice and Political Consulting, or German Political Science Quarterly. Since 2025, Natalie Rauscher is the managing director of the Graduate Academy at Würzburg University.
Welf Werner is the Director of the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (Germany) and was trained in economics, finance, management, and economic history at the Freie Universität Berlin (Germany) and Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana (USA). Before joining the faculty of International University Bremen (Germany) as a Professor of International Economics in 2004, he taught U.S. economic policy and history as a lecturer and assistant professor at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Berlin (Germany). Welf Werner received his Ph.D. and venia legendi from the Economics Department of the Freie Universität Berlin in 1992 and 2003, respectively. He was a John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for European Studies (USA) in 1994 and returned to the U.S. in 1997 as a research fellow at both Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Washington D.C. (USA) and George Washington University, Washington D.C. (USA). In February 2018, Welf Werner was appointed Professor of American Studies at the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at Universität Heidelberg and director of the HCA. His research and teaching focus on U.S. domestic and foreign economic policies while giving due regard to their intertwining with history and political science. Specific research interests have touched upon fields such as international trade in services, financial market globalization, monetary regime change, natural disasters and international risk management, globalization and inequality, welfare state reform, and the economic determinants of populism.
Summary
This volume examines the history of natural disasters in the United States and the nation's ongoing struggles with long-term disaster preparedness and response. It explores the political, economic, and cultural factors that have shaped the country's vulnerability. It highlights why, despite its vast resources, the United States has remained one of the most resistant actors in recognizing and mitigating disaster risk.
Bringing together contributions from a variety of fields, this book analyzes the role of political institutions, media narratives, and cultural perceptions in shaping disaster policy. It examines key historical events to identify patterns of governance failure and missed opportunities to build resilience. Ultimately, this volume provides crucial insights into the historical baggage that the United States brings to multilateral climate negotiations, helping to explain its often frustrating role on the international stage.
This book is essential reading for students, researchers, and scholars in the social sciences, humanities, and environmental studies, as well as policymakers and practitioners seeking a deeper understanding of the challenges and shortcomings of U.S. disaster mitigation policy.
Chapter “‘Becoming Green:’ Resilient and Green Building as Risk Mitigation in Atlanta, Georgia” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
